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posted by Chris on July 27, 2009 7:08 PM in Podcast
There's a bit of a heat wave in Seattle this week, making us here at the podcast a little batty as we discuss the week's geek news, including highlights from San Diego Comic Con. Jinny, Ross and Qais join me for a roundtable about cosplaying, downloadable games involving rotund royalty, making your own Fallout 3 meds, new Left 4 Dead classes, the Scott Pilgrim game, Jeff Smith making new Bone comics, and Settlers of Catan coming to the iPhone. There's also an argument about Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland crammed in there, with differing opinions on each side! You don't get that in your average podcast. Enjoy.
It's no secret that I enjoy dressing up like video game characters at PAX. This year, I'm dragging Jinny along for a joint Fallout cosplay. I'll be posting the costumes (and instructions on how to make them!) but first, let's talk accessories. Nothing ties a costume together like attention to detail, so I decided to whip up some little Fallout doo-dads to stuff in our belts. I've made some Nuka-Cola caps, a bottle of Buffout, and some Med-X. And you can, too! Here's how to do it:
Print the template and cut out the cap tops. Paint some rubber cement on the underside of the paper and on the top of the bottlecap. Let it dry. This technique allows for maximum adhesion. Be sure to get the edges! Touch up the sides with some red paint. Use a spray sealant (matte or gloss, doesn't matter) to make them shine.
Med-X
You'll need: Small syringes, spray paint (get the stuff formulated especially for plastic)
Print out the template to the size of your bottle. I've made the template a standard size, but you can shrink it to fit any size bottle you'd like. If your bottle isn't black, you can always spraypaint it. Buffout bottles in-game are black with a white lid, but really any bottle will do. Use the same cementing technique for the label you used on the bottlecaps. Fill with candy and give to small children! They'll love the sweet delicious taste of Buffout.
Up next: Wasteland wanderer costume, Raider costume and some nice shiny glowy Nuka Cola Quantum. Stay tuned!
As any astute reader of Practical Alchemy will notice I'm a little obsessed with desserts. My obsession comes front and center again this week in the form of galette dough. A galette is a flaky pastry prepared similar to a pie, however with a stronger dough and without a pie tin. To clarify, a galette is pure delicious, a galette is a reason to get out of bed in the morning, a galette will be the driving force behind world peace in the year 2014*. As amazing as a galette can be the best part is galette is how quick and easy creating this fancy desert really is.
The galette dough can be made in bulk and frozen ahead of time, needing only a quick overnight thaw in the fridge before being rolled, having fruit added, and baked making it an ideal dessert to make when you are pressed for time, but really want to impress friends and family alike. Click through to find out how to stock your freezer with these ready-to-go discs of deliciousness.
posted by Chris on July 20, 2009 6:51 PM in Podcast
The podcast is jam-packed full of content this week with me, Ross and Jinny talking about Comic Con in San Diego and how it will harm your wallet, some new toys and prints you'll find there including Jhonen Vasquez's limited edition Bioshock 2 print. We also discuss the new Goozex Blu-ray and DVD trading capabilities, Futurama's recasting, Rock Band's new content creation system, the iPhone 3gs and how the old iPhones are still selling like iPhone shaped hot cakes, and music recommendations for 2009. Tune in, won't you?
The Weekly Geek community's lookin' goooooood. Last week we asked you to submit a photo of your favorite outfit in the Weekly Geek flickr pool to win one of these great shirts from Robit Studios and you delivered! We've got a bunch of classy lookin' listeners, I tell you what.
Danton D. in customized Up 3d glasses and a kickin' pixellated paisley hoodie
Zonugal, in his "Confidence Outfit"
Lior, who really really loves Spiderman
Chesh, whose epic moustache perfectly compliments his classy vest and tie combo
n0brein, who apparently lives in a fashion catalog
Rocco Anthony, who rocks the newsboy hat and vintage tee
Second place goes to n0brein, who will receive whatever shirt the first place winner didn't choose!
Thanks to everyone for your participation, it's nice to see geeks breaking the baggy black t-shirt stereotype. Winners, please give me your mailing address so you can get your prize.
Sourced from Middle Eastern culture, the kebab is a quick way to meld flavors by grilling meats, fruits, and vegetables together over an open fire. Kebabs are an easy out after a long day - at its simplest form you can chop some ingredients, thread them onto skewers, and grill with your meal ready to eat in 10-15 minutes.
When preparing the kebab almost any ingredients can be used. I'm a big fan of mixing beef, bell peppers, onions, apples, and squashes myself, although great results can be achieved with fewer or more exotic ingredients alike. I like to make sure I have a little mix of everything--sweet, spicy, and savory.
If using ingredients that cook at drastically different speeds, it may be advisable to put those ingredients on separate skewers to allow them to cook for varied periods of time. If all of the ingredients being combined cook at approximately the same temperature, then interweaving ingredients on the skewers can give the flavors a chance to blend during the marinating and grilling. Bear in mind that larger chunks of meat will take longer to cook. If you're considering pairing with tender vegetables, cut the meat into thinner or smaller pieces.
Once the meat, vegetables, and fruits are skewered, drizzling them with marinade can add a blast of flavor. Typically I prefer a more simple preparation with some oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper whisked together and poured over the kebabs 5-10 minutes prior to cooking. I re-drizzle the marinade a couple of times while rotating the kebabs during the cooking process to infuse more flavor and help keep the ingredients moist and succulent.
Unlike larger cuts of meat, the smaller bite-sized chunks used in kebabs won't need to rest after grilling because the juices won't need to redistribute and the temperature will already be more consistent. Kebabs are ideal for serving hot of the grill, either plated in their skewered state or quickly slid off the skewers and plated as a pile of pure deliciousness.
posted by Chris on July 13, 2009 10:43 AM in Podcast
This week, Jinny and Ross join me to discuss a few big news stories in the geek realm - Professor Layton's Twitter account was a fake, Bioshock 2's release date was pushed back and Bit.Trip Core was finally released. We also discuss guilty pleasures, Fallout 3 (because we may as well just be an official Fallout 3 podcast at this point) and more. It's the same conversation you love, with the same cast you probably tolerate. Enjoy!
I just completed my entry in Tenacious Toys' recent Mini Bomb Custom Show Off. I am calling him Beppy the Happy Bathysphere. Though he's more like a little submarine guy than a bathysphere. He's based off of a Kozik Mini Bomb, and was augmented with Sculpey and paint. The coins even glow in the dark! Because I am a nerd like that.
I changed the design of the Mini Bomb pretty drastically for this one, but I really wanted to do something a bit more sculpted, a bit less just painting on a bomb shape. I didn't want to draw a face on the bomb and call it good, you know? This was also the smallest custom I've painted yet, and really forced me to be more careful in my detailing. So much fun, so much delicious learning. Many thanks to Tenacious Toys for starting this!
For all the railing against hipsters and the meta culture of the past few years, there are a few great things that have come from our current obsession with past aesthetics. "Retro" gaming has breathed new life into old gameplay tropes, games like bit.trip beat and Mega Man 9 show that just because it looks like it's from the 80's doesn't mean it's old or dated, it's just a different aesthetic. A chosen, purposeful aesthetic. I've heard complaints that there's no new ideas being generated in art these days; that we've done it all and now we're cannibalizing ourselves and perverting existing works. I blame the movie industry and the obsession with remakes and sequels. With music, it's a bit different. Many artists are just taking certain sounds and moods that make them happy, and shaping them into a new and refreshing product. Enter Passion Pit.
In 2008, Passion Pit released their first EP, Chunk of Change. The first four tracks on that album were made by lead vocalist Michael Angelakos as a gift to his girlfriend at the time, and it shows. The tracks are lovingly crafted and the EP showed great potential. Manners feels like a logical progression from Chunk of Change, building on the retro-synth and Angelakos' wailing vocals into a swirling vortex of pure joy, without ever feeling saccharine.
Manners is just that: a joyful album. Angelakos has obviously been influenced by sounds from his youth that made him happy. A little bit of Tears for Fears here, a little bit of Bee Gees there with a dash of... Mega Man? As a matter of fact, most of Manners feels like it could be from the lost Mega Man soundtrack with it's catchy hooks and driving melodies. It's bubbly and full of energy, while never feeling fake or put-on. In this current meta-culture - stinky with hipsters and their thick colorful sunglasses and co-opted (read: questionable) fashion choices - it's all about consumption. Chew up one trend, spit it out to prepare for the next one. Passion Pit transcends this perversion and becomes something entirely new.
Standout tracks like The Reeling (above) and Little Secrets show depth both in their lyrics and their production, without ever feeling manufactured. It's an authentic joy that Angelakos takes in his music, and history shows that if the artist puts his heart and soul into his work, the end product is better for it. Personally, I can't stop listening to it. I fall asleep with Passion Pit stuck in my head, and I wake up with Passion Pit stuck in my head. It's not often that an album comes along and inspires me to play it over and over and over again, usually I'm afraid of wearing it out. Manners reveals layers the more I listen to it, and the pure joy of Passion Pit inspires me in the way few albums do.
Sure, you could compare them to other recent synth-heavy indie pop bands like MGMT and just calling the sound a fad, but you'd be selling Passion Pit short. Railing against the current rash of hipster culture is one thing, but if you write them off just because they sound like a retro revival you'd be missing out on what is one of the best albums of 2009. Full of emotion and joy and brilliance.
look at me oh look at me is this the way i'll always be
oh no, oh no
I like to think that Weekly Geek listeners are a fashionable bunch. We take more care than the run-of-the-mill geek when it comes to appearance, even if we just slap on a t-shirt it's usually a dang good one. That's why we're teaming up with Robit Studios, purveyors of fine hand-printed apparel for our first Geek Chic contest. We've got two great shirts to give away, as well as a handful of Weekly Geek stickers and buttons for the runners-up. The winner will get their choice from these two lovely shirts, Chance of Reign and Old School. Second place gets the shirt the first place winner didn't choose. So, how do you win these things?
Show us your best outfit and post it to the Weekly Geek Flickr Pool. We're not looking for wacky, we're looking for style. What do you have in your closet that makes you feel like an absolute rock star? It doesn't have to be a suit and tie, or anything formal. The winners will be chosen on July 16th. We'll pick out whoever looks the fanciest.
In addition! If you're interested in purchasing some of the shirts from Robit Studios, use the code weeklygeek at checkout for 10% off! Not bad, yo.
Having the family in town for the big 4th weekend meant a lot of grilling happened in the Sparky household including grilling my first pineapple. Almost immediately upon grilling my first pineapple I was struck with its sheer awesomeness and was required to procure and grill a second pineapple a mere day later. Have you had grilled pineapple? If you haven't you should - lightly salted, grilled pineapple is pure amazing wrapped in charred wonderfulness.
Grilling pineapple is drop dead simple. Chop the top and bottom from the pineapple and then slice off the sides to reveal a hexagonal pillar of sweet yellow goodness. Slice the goodness pillar into 1/2" hexagonal discs of sweet yellow goodness then lightly sprinkle with salt. Allow the salt to soak in while the grill heats, then once the grill is as hot as can be toss the slices on to their sizzling fate.
In a few minutes the pineapple will be lightly charred on one side. Flip the slices - and redistribute around the grill if you have hot spots (like I do). A few more minutes and the sweet steamy slices are ready to be whisked back from the grill to the kitchen. A few quick cuts to remove the succulent ring of deliciousness from the fibrous center and your pineapple is ready to serve.
posted by Chris on July 6, 2009 6:39 PM in Podcast
Despite the Summer doldrums, we've got a packed podcast for you this week. It's me, Jinny, Ross and Ryan talking about what we're currently playing, reading, listening to and eating. It's also Ryan's last podcast for a few months, which is a sad thing. We've also got a new contest to win some great t-shirts from Robit studios. It's a crazy mish-mash of things this week, but we do discuss things relevant to your interests! I swear. Enjoy.
It's been about two months since I declared my intentions to make a fully digital animation in Toon Boom Studio. So how's that going? Well, it's roughly 75% done. However now that summer has rolled around my initiative has been somewhat sapped. Not to mention work and trying to get this Filmmaking Club started at the University.
But just as an interesting side, I figured I'd post all of the backgrounds I did. You can find them all here on my Fickr Gallery.
Under the cut I'll show you the basic process I went through to make them.
Lively Scene from "Ponyo on the Cliff by the sea" by jasohill
Submit your photos to the Weekly Geek Flickr Pool and get your cool or otherwise geeky photo featured on the site. Prizes are involved. Click here. (Oh god please no more Perler bead creations unless they are COMPLETELY AWESOME)
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